How do you start up in the dark if you can't see a dang thing?

There is probably a simple answer to this question but I'm a bit stumped. I'm making a night mission with a ramp start. I get put in a hardened shelter at Vaziani and when the mission starts, I can't see a thing inside the cockpit and cannot possibly fumble my way through the startup. Surely there must be a way to do this? Is there a keyboard command for sufficient cockpit illumination to get me started, even before battery on? Is this what "prepare Mission" is for? I have never understood that function. Can anyone enLIGHTen me? Thanks.

There is an emergency flood switch to the right of the inverter switch. If you cant find that, try tuning your screen...

Prepare mission is for setting up and storing settings in dsms/cdu/radios and so forth, it will still be a cold aircraft when you start your mission...

And if you can't find the emergency flood light switch in the dark, you can always put on your night vision goggles for a while :)

Got it, thanks.

If you forgot how to turn on the Gogglez:

Try: Radio: Ground crew, ground power on - then hit "L" key on your keyboard.

If you forgot how to turn on the Gogglez:

Try: Radio: Ground crew, ground power on - then hit "L" key on your keyboard.

thats just the instrument lights :-)

right shift + h is default for the goggles.

Makes me wonder; how common is it to have external ground power connected to a military fighter that is about fly a mission?

In operational terms I can see this would be a major hassle, especially for fighters standing by for scramble missions.

Does anyone with real life experience care to shed some light on this, please?

If you forgot how to turn on the Gogglez:

Try: Radio: Ground crew, ground power on - then hit "L" key on your keyboard.

You don't need ground power for the NVGs.

Makes me wonder; how common is it to have external ground power connected to a military fighter that is about fly a mission?

In operational terms I can see this would be a major hassle, especially for fighters standing by for scramble missions.

Does anyone with real life experience care to shed some light on this, please?

It's not, we NEVER have ground power hooked up to an A-10 before any mission. They are only used for maintenance.

Also the emergency flood lights are hard-wired. You don't even need the battery switch turned on :)

It's not, we NEVER have ground power hooked up to an A-10 before any mission. They are only used for maintenance.

So what is common practise then during nighttime when you enter a cold and dark cockpit? Do you use the emergency lighting initially so see anything or is the old fashioned flashlight used?

Well usually aircraft means airfield and airfield means...light !

Yeah. Apparently Russian/Georgian airports don't use incandescent light bulbs at night.

The fact that there is light on the airfield does not neccessarily mean you can see very well in the cockpit. ;)

Besides an aircraft may be parked on a remote apron without lighting.

Without going into semantics I think the intent of the question was clear enough?

I remember being parked at a Norwegian Military airfield with our (civilian) Fokker 50. There were light masts, but still it was hard to see in the cockpit in the dark.

For us it was easy; we got a GPU connected. Instant cockpit lighting, but I am curious how this would work for military aircraft without GPU's during the night.

Is the use of emergency lighting common practise when going to a cold and dark cockpit during the night, or does the pilot use his NVG, for example?

Also isn't some sort of lamp part of the pilot's emergency kit ?

But i put it down to one of the more funny things that will happen when simulator crosses swords with real life :)

If i was about to approach an aircraft in complete darkness or anything else for that matter, before i got in the cockpit i would have worked out that i need a light. This would, i presume involve finding out where the damm light switch is in the hanger. In real life of course. In the game i would just adjust my monitor brightness to find the battery switch.

You don't need ground power for the NVGs.

O'RLY? =)

Like I said: If you forget how to enable NVGs, you can get light in your cockpit without seeing anything by calling in ground power and hitting L.

Not suer if it enables Flood lights, but still, you can see all them pesky switches hiding in the cover of darkness.

In a Finnish documentary a Hornet pilot had a flashlight he used to inspect the aircraft and then find the switches for cocpit lights. After finished using it he put it in a pocket on his flight suit and continued the start-up.

Flash light could be nice.

Say, ctrl+shift+f turn on a small lighten area arround the mouse pointer.

In addition, if flash light is turned on the rest should go dark for a while, like the sun does but for longer period, to mimic the lost of night vision (the natural one)

O'RLY? =)

 

Like I said: If you forget how to enable NVGs, you can get light in your cockpit without seeing anything by calling in ground power and hitting L.

Not suer if it enables Flood lights, but still, you can see all them pesky switches hiding in the cover of darkness.

If you are using "realistic" radios, I don't think you can't call anyone until the radios can be powered up after batt switch, inverter and APU. So that's not really an option.

Ground crew will respond if your canopy is still open and engines still off, as if within earshot.

Good to know. How can you disengage from ground crew without them calling "What are you doing...??"

Good to know. How can you disengage from ground crew without them calling "What are you doing...??"

I wish I had an answer to this but I think that one is a bug. I'd love to be corrected though! :music_whistling: